My last post prompted interesting comments through which I became more acquainted with dimiourgia, xana! I looked up their website and was floored: after so many populist soundbites over the last weeks, all of a sudden so much common sense and reasonableness!

Here is my suggestion to Alexis Tsipras:

Vote for dimiourgia, xana! and get your entire movement to vote for them so that they can form the next government on their own. Give them about 20 years’ time. When they are done, you run for the office of Prime Minister yourself. You will still be younger than Andreas Papandreou was when he became Prime Minister the first time. And after 20 years of dimiourgia, xana! you will have so much of other people’s money at your disposal that you can easily waste it for another 20 years and build your place in Greek history books!

45 Responses to Mr. Tsipras – vote for dimiourgia, xana!

Mr. Tsipras would rather shoot his brains than abbandon his leftism populism for the "disgusting" neoliberalism of the "bankers" and "plutocrats", as he calls everyone who doesn't sell false hope and easy utopias.Bandolero.

Mr. Kastner, in case you don't know, Mr. Tsipras' "hero figure" is Slavoi Zizek:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr_EIr3YXJIExpecting Tsipras to acknowledge that Greece, after having derailed due to extreme left steering, needs now a rightwards steering to find back its way to the tracks, is like expecting a pig to fly.Bandolero.

Hi Klaus! We had some exchanges in the past on Greece! Nice to hear you fell on the Recreate Greece party (dimiourgia xana!) website! I am among the founding members and candidate in the elections (although in the last position with no chances to be really elected… but this is small detail)If we get in the parliament do follow us! a revolution will be unfolding. The Ottoman- Stalinist alliance will be soon getting more and more concerned…I would like to come back to you on this issue soon, for some possible advice on initiatives I am planningHappy to see you are aware off these developments!all the best Klaus!Nikos

Hello, i am the one who introduced Mr. Kastner to Dimioyrgia Xana (i am a simple voter). Unfortunately, i think that the people must first live a couple of more of SYRIZA/ND goverments before seriously voting for someone non populist like Dimiourgia Xana-Drasi. PASOKism is so deeply rooted inside the greek society, that they can't get it, that the way of life that PASOK provided them was a gold plated cyanide capsule.But we must have patience, don't we…Bandolero.

If I may offer some amateur analysis of Greek society — the more I read about modern Greece, the more I am baffled how complex a history this society has. To give you an example: until recently I knew that there had been a civil war in Greece (just like like there had been civil wars in Spain, Russia, etc.) but I had no idea how complex that particular civil (particularly its origin) was. Normally, you have the "good guys" and the "bad guys". Not so easy in Greece!I find it absolutely baffling how this (still rather recent) period of Greek history is being absolutely ignored, wiped under the carpet. This instead of being dealt with in an objective manner. I guess the idea is to let bygones be bygones so that they do not trigger new excitement.The only thing is: in a society bygones don't simply disappear because one lets them be bygones. They tend to live on for generations unless they are dealt with.I hope I don't offend anyone but sometimes I have the impression that today's emotional debates among Greek society follow to a large extent the old ELAS/EDES divisions.

Mr. Kastner, in modern Greece, you have to understand a simple fact. The left, lost the civil war, but, won the intellectual war. Today, university professors and media are full of leftists. Right wing thinkers are isolated and derised. The reason why the civil war (unlike all other eras) is kept under the carpet, is because the left doesn't want it to be known, since the left did some pretty ugly things and has some pretty big responsibilities back then. At school children don't learn anything about it. They learn all about the "bad right" that sent communists to exile on the islands and of course the junta. But not about the "sins of the left". It's a very complicated story… The left managed to sanctify itself through cover-up. Papandreou in the 80s even ordered to burn all the official army pubblications about the civil war… Anyway, i could write for days trying to explain to you and it would still not be enough… There is one funny thing that is indicative though. All the left parties in Greece, have managed to convince the average Greek of 2 things:1) Right wing= conservative. Conservative means regression, primitiveness, backwardness.2) Left wing= Progress, democracy, justice.Greece is probably the only country in the world where the left parties have "trademarked" the word "progress". They call themselves "progressive" and a left goverment "progressive" and they have also managed to pass as a normal fact that the others are the "conservatives", with the meaning of almost an insult. For example the communist party says "the forces of conservatism", when they want to sneer/scorn at the right.I don't think there was a continous division that can be led back to the civil war. I myself used to be a socialist when i was 20. Sometimes i think that most Greeks probably start as socialists due to the brainwash to which they are subjected. But with the crisis there is a clear division again between left and right that is very preoccupying. The comunist party though has clearly never gone by the fact that lost the civil war. They organize yearly commemorations on the mountains where the battles were fought (the New Democracy doesn't dare do the same about the state army, it would be so… conservatism and… juntaish), say they don't recognize the constitution but only the right of the worker and are die-hard stalinists. To this day, the segretary of the party says that the Berlin Wall was a right of the East German people to defend themselves from the american imperialism and sent a telegram with condolences to North Korea for the death of Kim Il Sung, adding that "it is the right of the corean people to follow the path that they chose (!), against all outside imperialistic interventions".(continues)

(continues here)To understand Greece after 1974, try to imagine a post-WWII Germany, where a left, uses the nazi history as political weapon and propaganda to inspire guilt to the right wing. Pretty much the post 1974 Greece was built (or destroyed), with the implied attack coming from the left that "if you aren't agreeing with us, you are a junta supporter". Even to this day, in political campaigns, the organizers throw the classic PASOK slogan "the people don't forget what right wing means". It's as if Schroeder in Germany was making war against Merkel saying "the people don't forget what nazis are".This wild leftist ideology that dominated Greece, is also the reason of how "Golden Dawn", the greek fascist party, gained so much power out of nothing. People were suffering from extreme high crime. For years whoever dared speak, was labelled "fascist" from politicians and media journalists. Even New Democracy was silent in fear of being labelled as such. Then Golden Dawn came and substituded the police. And cleared out an entire neighbourhood. Old ladies call Golden Dawn to escort her to the bank to take her pension. So people vote Golden Dawn…As i use to say, for a strange joke of history, it seems that modern Greeks have inherited from the ancient ones, the ability to fight with each others to the death all the time. They forgot to inherit the positives traits too unfortunately.Greece is like a pendulum, periodically shifting between extremes. And periodically pays the price for allowing such extremisms. It's a bit like Athens and Sparta. None of the two had the common sense to see that a war between them would have no real victors.Each thought they would crush the other, because they listened to the Tsipras of the era. Sparta won, but became a shade of its past. They simply destroyed each other.This is a recurring theme in greek history. The biggest hero of the revolution was imprisoned soon enough by the first politicians. The first governor, today considered a great man, again, shot dead. Same with Venizelos, today considered the greatest statesman of the 20th century, in the 1920 elections wasn't even elected as PM. Greece paid a huge price afterwards for the populism that caused that. And again, after WWII, the civil war. Which, for the greek left, is all fault of the british by the way.As i said, it's a very long story.Bandolero.

By the way, Mr. Sakkas, i trully hope that with the first occasion you will disengage from Mr. Valianatos. He should be with SYRIZA or ANTARSYA maybe, not in a coalition with Dimiourgia Xana. I know several people that have problems voting Dimiourgia Xana or Drasi because of that. As a matter of fact, that's one of the factors why i didn't vote for Drasi on May 6 and chose Dimiourgia Xana instead.Bandolero.

However reasonable their posotions on several issues, I do hope you have read all the way to their plans on how to handle illegal immigrants, who are clearly considered to be children of a lesser God in the eyes of Dimiourgia Xana.Christine Papandreou

Dear Mrs Papandreou,In case you haven't noticed, positions of the left like yours concerning the flood of illegal immigration in Greece, is what made Golden Dawn blossom.I would advice you, before speaking about "children of a lesser God", to search and find the legislation on the matter of Italy for example, which is yet another "Dublin II entrance point" and you will be probably shocked… Unfortunately, Greece is already doing much more than it should, by receiving 90% of the illegal immigration towards EU. Not by change, even north Africans, don't choose to pass to Italy or Spain anymore, but prefer to travel to Turkey first, in order to pass to Greece. Have you ever asked yourself why?1) Is it because Italy or Spain are poorer than Greece and as such don't offer such a good prospect of life?2) Is it because Italy or Spain are more distant than Greece?3) Is it because Italy or Spain are less civilized than Greece?As i said, you may find your answers in the legislations and practices of the 2 countries, which,by the way, receive much less migrants than Greece and thanks to that legislation, managed to divert their flow to the "greek paradise".Best regardsBandolero.

Mr. Kastner, you will need google translation:http://www.dimiourgiaxana.gr/index.php/metanasteftikoIn Greece, the left all these years has said:"We are all children of the same people, the immigrants are our brothers, open the borders to them, Greeks have migrated too, so it's racist not to accept every person that was struck by a calamity or a war of NATO, making Greece responsible for it."For example the SYRIZA and KKE say "NATO is bombing Afghanistan, so we are responsible of all the Aghan immigrants and we must accept them".Now to understand the problem, see this about the Dublin II Treaty (Greece has become the human dumpster of the North Europeans, who don't want more migrants):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq1JVofrxdMThen also watch this, with an Iranian migrant, who says he wants to go back to Iran, because Athens is like Kabul (he may be a crypto-fascist!)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkcTrx1KlL8&feature=relatedThe fact is: Greece, is NOT USA, or Germany. Has already taken in 20 years probably close to 2 mln illegal migrants, some which later were legalized. Every day 300 more are arrested entering the borders. God knows how many are not arrested.The greek economy cannot sustain this burdain any longer. The only thing that thrives is the black economy. Crime has skyrocketed. Greece is the only european country where Kalashnikovs are circulating in broad daylight in robberies on daily basis. Others have been arrested carrying swords.This is how Golden Dawn emerged. The left doesn't want to accept reality. In Asia, there are hundred of millions wanting to get to Europe. Europe, thanks to Dublin II, unloads them ALL to Greece. Greece must do something or perish. It's so simple.Dimiourgia Xana says:1) Fence on the greek-turkish land borders, along all the length of it (Spain has already done it)2) Satellite monitoring of the borders and patrols of the Coast Guard.3) National Guard patrols on volontary basis.4) Immediate expulsion of those who don't deserve or ask for political asylum.5) Cooperate with the other "victim countries" (Italy, Spain, France) the cancellation of Dublin II Treaty. If someone wants to go to Germany, let him go there and have Germany decide his fate, not Greece!6) Abolish the current provvisions in health care and pension system that give the migrants more rights than the Greeks themselves have (to give a small example, up to the start of the crisis, a Greek had to pay in a hospital. A migrant no. There was a flock of balkan patients coming to Greece for free treatment. Or a migrant could take a full greek pension even if he had worked only for a 1 year in Greece and the rest in his country. This way, there were thousands of balkan workers, asking for pensions in Greece with minimal work in Greece, taking a pensions of say 700 euros, while in their homecountry they would take a pension of 200 euros).7) Use of migrants that deserve expulsion but can't be so (and doesn't want to leave on his own) as cheap workforce into special economic zones. In this way they could be be part of grown progress, without threatening jobs of Greeks (see again about fueling black economy).8) A child will be able to take greek citizenship not automatic on birth (as this would encourage more illegal immigrants to come to Greece and grab a nationality with which to pursue their european dream in another country), after 15 years of life in Greece and their parents have been living legally in the country for 15 years and after exams in greek language, history and culture.This is the main thing, as i see it. Now in the eyes of the greek left, this is something close to nazi program.Bandolero.

About immigrants the left whistles indifferently, the right beats them to death and if someone makes any practical suggestion, like Recreate Greece did, he gets all the anathema. Apparenelty tyhe"left" has a very big heart here and a very big back; it can carry lovingly the whole third world. Shame on you hypocrites! did you utter one sngle word to condemn the N. Korean brutality? The Syrian one maybe? Do you recall any name of the people YOUR policy burnt alive in MARFIN? maybe the pregnant lady?Anyway we' ve has enough of nonsense and wishes in this coutnry; its time for action and doing.

Oh, Mr. Kastner, to understand in 2 words the view of the greek left on illegal immigration, this is a usual quote from various left party MPs: "There is no such thing as clandestine migrant. There are no human beings born clandestine. Clandestine, if any, can be the cigarettes. Why do you call them clandestine? You are a fascist, aren't you?".And then Golden Dawn came… to show what real fascism is about, to those who were trivializing the term.

Mr Kastner, i have read your posts above as well as your "program" yesterday and they are all good starting points. The problem with the greek economy isn't the lack of options or actions, it's the lack of political will.I personally believe, that Greece must be destroyed at the hands of the left (SYRIZA fits the bill perfectly for the job), in order to apply common sense plans. There are several greek and foreign institutes that have pubblished plans on how the greek economy must be reformed in order to reboot. The question is WHO will do it.The left will be on the streets fighting. I can already tell you that having special economic zones in Greece will be fought fiercely by the left, in the name of equality.In Chalkidiki, there are still fierce opposition from local leftists for the functioning of a gold mine.And there are 4 basic things non immediately connected to an economic program that need to change or they will halt any plan.1) The reduction of bureaucracy. Do you know the story of a greek who wanted to sell olive oil through the internet and he managed to get a license after about 10 months, after having to submit a faecies sample of him and his administration board to the health authorities and bypassing other greek licenses by getting license from the american FDA instead of the greek one?2) Stable tax system. Taxes in Greece vary every 3 months. Nobody wants to invest from abroads and even Greeks are scared to invest.3) Rapid judicial system for economic and tax disputes.4) New legislation concerning the demonstrations. Apply the law and Court rulings.If the above isn't done, any plan will fail. And as i said, unfortunately, in order for Greece to reboot, first SYRIZA needs to govern. Only after the people see yet another "left savior" fail, then they may let some non populist rebuild the country. Otherwise, no goverment can do anything with 1.000.000 people everyday out in the streets protesting or the usual 500 anarchists burning the center of Athens.Greece has big potential. It could live alone from tourism and from being commerce hub between Asia and Europe. It has mineral wealth which is unexploited. It has an agriculture that is working in inefficient way. I 've read you know about the greek olive oil that is sold to Italians only to be sold back as italian. It could use all sources of alternative energy. It could go back to actually attracting construction or repair work of greek ships to greek shipyards, invest in new technologies, stop giving the money always to foreign companies and start giving contracts to greek weapons companies. There isn't one sector of the greek economy that is actually working at 100% of capacity, except probably from shipping and this only because the greek state isn't interfering with shipping.But what is currently missing from Greece is common sense. PASOK took it away 30 years ago.To give you an example. This is a photo of a usual occupation of a passenger ship by the members of PAME (communist unionists):http://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/?aid=7117820 people go and occupy a ship after the comunist trade union declares a strike. A judge rules that the strike is illegal. They refuse to go away. The police doesn't intervene. The last time i remember the competent minister replied "If we send the police to arrest them, they will resist" (by the way, the thick flag poles they have is to be able to use them as weapons against the police). Those aren't really sailors. They are comunist students. The comunist party simply sends a "platoon" whenever is needed. It doesn't matter if they are of the same profession or not. And for 30 years, everyone has allowed that.So, do you understand why making plans has no value, if some other, simple things don't change first? Bandolero

Dear Klaus there is little chance that any sane man would invest any amount of money in Greece nowadays. In Recreate Greece we believe that first stirring local entrepreneurship is the only way to send a message that the country is not dead.To to this however you need a radical tax reform. The tax situation in Greece is more unbelievable than the civil war, one you touched upon in a previous post. A transaction that took us 7 months to complete in Greece and 2500E (change of official address) was a matter of sending a fax in …Cyprus.The tax law is something like 18.000 pages. I say it is deliberately kept at 18.000 pages. So that everybody is at the mercy of all sort of contradictory nonsense. So that everybody is always illegal and would have no option but to welcome an arrangement with the corrupt official. The tax law needs be scrapped in 24 hours. And substituted with a 21st century document of 30, 40, maximum 50 pages. This would clear off the most basic corruption substrate. Contrary to the nonsense of SYRIZA, who plans to increase tax rates, they should be brought down radically to 15%. There is no serious social state in Greece to fund! A Pakistan wheelchair user in rather better off than his Greek peer. Taxes fund the party occupation armies not any social state!! In Sweden I would seriously consider a 50% tax rate. In Greece we need a flat 15% up to 100k and then a 25% maximum.Having a simple, competitive and rational tax system and having it NOW not in ages is the only way to make the economy start moving. I trust the Greek entrepreneurial spirit. Out of the death touch of the public sector, in the maritime biz, it has made Greece global no 1.If the economy moves again, investors will take a second look. Till then, let's forget them.

I am glad about Valianatos. Send him back to George Papandreou or maybe to Tsipras, since i am sure he will find more friendly ears there.By the way, you may want to copy the italian immigration legislation. Main things that come to my mind:- Bilateral agreements with all countries to re-patriate their immigrants.- Illegal immigration is penal crime.- No access to the pubblic sector for immigrants without work permit. In Italy if you want to activate a telephone line, you can't without legal papers. – Impossibility to open a bank account without legal papers.- Confiscate the houses that rent to illegal migrants.- Controlled and temporary immigration. Italy has been doing this for years. Do you want temporary workers in agriculture? Come to contact with a country you want, and bring in the number of workers you want with temporary permit. After they finish, back to their country. The next time you need them, the workers that behaved properly will get priority. – Each employer declares to his regional authority the number of immigrants he wants in his service. The region forwards the request to the central goverment, which on its turn, contacts countries of interest (in this case, you can also choose from WHICH country you prefer having them).You can read more here:http://www.governoberlusconi.it/dettaglio/406/il-pacchetto-sicurezza-voce-per-voceDimioyrgia xana must digg further to find the practices that other countries have been having for over 10 years! I am SICK and tired listening on the greek tv the usual leftist saying "and who is going to collect our tomatoes"? The temporary workers will. Bandolero.

There would be so many things to change at once to make Greece an attractive place to do business that I doubt that they can be accomplished in a short time. No, I don't doubt; I am certain that they can't. This is why I came to the idea of Special Economic Zones. There, you wouldn't have to change anything; you would just start from scratch in the "perfect" way.Suppose you had one near Athens and another one near Thessaloniki, i. e. where many people and many unemployed are. If the SEZs work and if new investment/employment takes place there, the protesters would have a pretty hard case when they are protesting that several thousand previously unemployed are now happily working in new jobs and making a decent living.

Technically, you are absolutely correct; but there is also psychological battle. We need to get across, fast, the message that “Greeks can create”. I reckon, reforming the tax system radically is the best way in this direction.

SEZ would work, IF a goverment had the will to actually arrest the hundred of comunist protesters that will try to block the access to it.This would be cause of war for the comunist party:"more or less free labor regulations; more or less free salary/wage negotiation between company and employees; guarantee of political risk for investments from abroad;"Currently, the comunist party is holding a strike on a steel factory in Greece that is going on for months (i think more than 6 months). The comunist party is paying a monthly wage of about 400 euros to the protesters so that they keep going. There are many workers that actually want to work in the factory, but the comunists won't let them it and the goverment doesn't want to have the police do something about it, since, as i said, thanks to the "junta ghost", the left in Greece can do pretty much anything in perfect impunity.

An interesting thing to see, is how Greece was rebuilt after the civil war. Now, the defeated comunists, either fled the country or many were exiled. The PM of the time, Karamanlis followed a tactic of "shut up and dig". Greece started growing at very high rates, while having for 30 years no currency fluctuation, because it was pegged to the dollar (1$= 30 drachmas). And then the socialists came, eating up all the money and starting the devaluations of course, after changing the economic model to a parassitic one.This teaches us, that the only way Greece can return to grow, is again, with a non leftist PM that will show iron fist (not saying to exile anyone of course), will give a national target to the people and will not hesitate to clash with anyone that will stand on the way. In order to do that, first, the left must have disappointed and disillusioned the big mass of the greek population, who still seeks a new Andreas Papandreou in Tsipras, hoping that he will, like Andreas, start giving jobs in the pubblic sector and say "don't worry, it's all under control".A big portion of Tsipras' voters actually think that the main problem of Greece is the debt and if we write it off unilaterally, then we will go back to live like we were in 2009. They actually believe SYRIZA's economists, that Greece can survive in the eurozone, by a simple increase in taxation of private sector and tax evaders and a re-modelling of the public sectors with 100.000 more hired personnel as SYRIZA says.Madness.

Yes, provided that the initial "blockade" of the SEZ will be forced open so that the workers can get in and become happy. The comunist party will do "pre-emptive strike", blockading it before it starts functioning. If this step is overcome, then in deed, it will become hard for them to block it.Bandolero

On a sidenote, if tomorrow Mr. Tsipras does win, with a 1% margin, he will have to send flowers to Mrs Merkel and Mr. Schauble. Their continuous interventions telling the Greeks to "not vote for Tsipras", has certainly boosted Tsipras' percentages. Every time that they or Mrs Lagarde says "don't vote Tsipras", Tsipras opens a bottle of champagne.Bandolero.

My personal belief is that Mr Vallianatos has been a liability to both parties. Half the people I know refuse to vote for dimiourgia, xana! tomorrow and didn't vote for Drasi in the previous elections because of his views on several thorny issues. I'm sure this is a trend noted by other supporters as well, therefore a problem that has to be addressed sooner rather than later….

What powers extremists is the inability/disdain of 'moderates' to solve real problems. When old ladies are robbed and beaten up in broad daylight and sent to the hospotal with multiple fractures and the 'moderates' do nothing for over 20 years, what do you expect the people to do? In Greece there is a saying "if the baby does not cry, it gets no milk". Without calling President Bush senior an extremist, one might recall how Dukakis lost the 1988 elections to Georage Bush senior despite leading by 20 points just because of the Willie Horton case. Americans felt that Dukakis was neglecting their safety and voted accordingly. What has happened in Greece is many times worse than the Willie Horton case.As for Dimiourgia xana, my main objections are:-adopting the Pangalos logic(we are all guilty because those who swore to defend state interests and were handsomely paid for it did not do their job, so it's verybody's fault and we, the rest should pay of it)-an inconsistent neoliberal attitude, which means the state should void existing private contracts(and only respect those who in completely opaque ways make tons of money, though their results are disastrous and the people below them are much better than them-I also have a fundamental problem with neoliberals: If Dimiourgia Xana thinks they are not able to profitably run monopoly companies like power and water, what on earth makes them fit for a much more complex task of running a country? In any self-respecting environment you are given a task, if you perform it well you are given a more complex one and this is how one should rise. I have a real problem with people who want to be at the helm without having accomplished anything yet(includes Mr. Tsipras of course)

Well, the troika is also partly to blame for this: If the troika demands and the Papademos government implements by law that the government can intervene and change/void existing PRIVATE contracts, then I can understand foreign or local investor not wanting to do anything there. It's like me buying Bayern Munchen and agreeing with the german government to pass a law to void by law existing players and coaches contracts! But at least players and coaches have UEFA to stand behind them. The rest do not.

Sadly, the "liberal coalition" of Drasi, Dimiourgia Xana & Fileleftheri Simmachia performed far worse together than they did when they went separately at the previous elections. Reason in Greek politics is still ages away…

On SEZ: You underestimate the ingenuity of greek 'enterpreneurs'. We're talking about people who wrote the books on tricks. For example not paying employees for 3 years(I'm only talking about highly profitable companies during the good times) and being confident that nothing will happen to them, even if the employees complain/report to the authorities. Why? Because they have the 'connections'. It should not be at all beyond your imagination that profitable companies would shut down and reopen in SEZs, thus transforming the entire country into an SEZ. Needless to say, anyone who can then leaves the country and you're left with Syriza, KKE and Golden Dawn.

As I said in my proposal, if the "Greek way of doing things" would set foot in an SEZ, then the project would be doomed to fail from the start. Yes, I hear what you are saying about the ingenuity of Greek entrepreneurs. But there has got to be away of assuring that, at least within an SEZ, the "domestic" Greek entrepreneurs will act the same way as Greek entrepreneurs have acted and act in the diasporas where they are extremely successful (and this not through cheating!).

I have to make a comment regarding the "neoliberal attitude" you quote because I feel strongly about this. It seems that neoliberalism has become the catch word for everything that is cold, despising human kind, only focusing on profits, only private and no state, etc. etc. Well, not quite. In the problematic political/economic climate of 1930s/1940s, thinkers revisited the subject of liberalism. These later called "neoliberals" concluded that liberalism in its original form (true laissez-faire) had led to negative consequences. An unregulated market, in the minds of those neoliberals, could/would lead to cartels, monopolies and other aberrations which would actually undermine the workings of the “market”. In the minds of neoliberals, the “market” is not something God-given. Instead, the market must be warranted by the state. Let me translate a quote which I personally find quite good: “The new liberalism, neoliberalism, which can be defended today and which we represent requires a strong state, a state beyond the interests of businesses, beyond the interests of interest groups — a state which is way up there where it belongs”.What has failed in the last decades, in my opinion, was that “strong state” and not the markets. Just take financial markets: when I started in banking in the USA in the 1970s, Glass-Steagall was in place; commercial bankers didn’t have to be smart but they were supposed to be safe; investment bankers could be smart and speculate a lot but they could only do it with their own and not with other people’s money; banks were seen as intermediaries between the have’s and have-not’s of money, they were a means towards an end and not and end per se; etc. etc.Why politicians, first only in the USA but later in Europe just as well, yielded completely to the lobbying of financial markets is a mystery to me. Once markets are set loose, market behavior follows. Market behavior is the behavior of individuals. The first time you make a fast profit of, say, a million at the expense of someone else, you might feel a little embarrassed. Over time, it becomes habit forming and value structures collapse. The Gordon Gekko’s become the heroes (and not Paul Volcker…). The collapse of value structures promoted by unregulated markets is, in my opinion, what’s at the bottom of today’s mess. Here is more on that if you are interested.http://kleingut-reflections.blogspot.gr/2011/08/two-views-on-america-george-f-will.html

Dear Bandolero,Thank you for taking the time to so explicitly state your arguments. I am afraid though that you have misunderstood. I am aware that Greece has taken in many more immigrants than it should have. And of course this is a big problem that needs to be addressed. But I do not believe that under any circumstances should any person -regardless of their nationality- be treated any differently then other persons (as clearly suggested in your point made #7). You have labeled this as a position of the left, I would argue that it is simply a humane approach – I would not like being treated differently if I had to migrate to another country.I do recognize the effort to provide a realistic solution to what seems to be an insolvable problem, I really do. But still, from a point of principle, I firmly believe we need to treat this as the european problem it really is, which means engage all european countries that have signed dublin ii to the solution. I also would have to disagree on your view that these kind of opinions have led to the blossom of Golden Dawn. Lack of quality education which leads to fear of what we do not know and do not understand has led there, in my opinion. Also a number of other factors -different per case- which would take some time to analyze.Regards,Christine Papandreou

Liberals were crushed in the dilemma "Tsipras or no Tsipras". Dimioyrxia Xana has 3-4 months of life as a party. Most Greeks don't have a clue of what it's program is about, some have never even heard of it. Since it's not already a parliament party, it had little means for pubblicity. Still, in the May 6 elections, which were more free, Dimiourgia Xana did remarkable well.You can't expect a crumbling political establishment to be replaced by a new one overnight. I have hope that Dimiourgia Xana will gain force in the following years. Especially after ND and SYRIZA fail. At that point, more people will turn for some other, untested solution. And Dimioyrgia Xana, i hope, will be there.Bandolero.

Klaus(on neo-liberals): Thanks for your analysis, but it reminds me of the basic flaws of communism: The citizen/voter does not see/care about the virtues of the theory, but experiences first hand the effects of the implementation. It sounds very much like having a discussion on the virtues of (real/theoretical)communism.But at any rate that was not my point. What I see neoliberals in Greece(like Manos and Tzimeros) bitch about how many people are public employees and all the privileges they have and so on. I never hear them speak this way about the privileges of people who(unlike many public sector employees) are say CEOs of public companies,paid insane amounts of money and bonuses, have disastrous results and are appointed there directly by the government instead of an open competition. And, especially for Mr. manos, I find it hard to take advice from someone who ruined his own company…

Except that the troika has even insisted(and the government implemented it in Febrauary) to legalize cheating, such as the state intervening to annul often long-standing EXISTING agreements and private contracts in favor of businesses. (I mentioned this in my original comment about neo-liberal attitude). So the signs are not encouraging. And trust is not a switch that you switch on when you need and off when you do not.

And SYRIZA and Democratic left each performed far better alone than when they were together. It's always and issue of alternatives, but also an issue of clarity. As a voter I want to know what I am voting for. A vote for PASOK or ND means you vote for someone with no guarantee as to what they will do. A vote for KKE, Golden Dawn, Independent Greeks and so on gives you a much better idea of what to expect from them(even if that means what they will NOT support). I know people who are quite mainstream rightwing and vote for KKE for the Europarliament for example. Why? Because they believe 99% of what the Europarliament passes is bad, so they vote for someone who is sure not to vote for these(even though for the wrong reasons)

Fortunately they were crushed. Not much to expect from a party that, I must admit has some sane ideas, but adopts the Pangalos logic "we are all to blame" and applies liberal principles selectively to favor the parasites and not the people who actually do the work.